Aftermath of the attack. The damage is secondary, it is the precedent that matters.Aftermath of the US attack on the al Sharat airbase in Homs.Aftermath of the US attack on the al Sharat airbase in Homs.Southfront map shows the location of the base near to the east Homs battlefield where the Syrian Army are battling ISIS. After promising to crush ISIS Trump is now offering them air support.

April 8, 2017.

US Attacks Syria with Cruise Missile Barrage on the Back of Big Lie.

At around 3.40am Damascus time on April the 7th, the US Navy launched a barrage of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles upon the Shayrat Syrian Air Force base in Homs province leaving at least six members of the Syrian military dead along with 9 civilians including four children.

Reports of damage vary widely but an aircraft repair depot containing damaged 8 planes and the radar station appear to have been the greatest losses of material.

The attack appears to have been extraordinarily militarily ineffective,but that is secondary to the fact that a threshold has been crossed, a precedent has been set and once these operations begin they almost inevitably achieve a momentum of their own.

In response Russia has suspended the agreement with the US coalition designed to avoid accidental collision or clashes between the Syrian/Russian and US coalition aircraft.

Alex Jones: “Doesn’t he understand , he is a smart guy, that when he rolls over to these people it only encourages them. They want his head on a spike.”

Paul Craig Roberts:”Well they don’t need his head on a spike if he surrenders to them.”

“I can’t say what he is doing but to me it looks like surrender.” (Source)

Robert Parry at Consortium News provides a credible, albeit anonymously sourced account of the internal machinations:

“the Trump national security team split between the President’s close personal advisers, such as nationalist firebrand Steve Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, on one side and old-line neocons who have regrouped under National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, an Army general who was a protégé of neocon favorite Gen. David Petraeus.”

White House Infighting

“In this telling, the earlier ouster of retired Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser and this week’s removal of Bannon from the National Security Council were key steps in the reassertion of neocon influence inside the Trump presidency. The strange personalities and ideological extremism of Flynn and Bannon made their ousters easier, but they were obstacles that the neocons wanted removed.”

“Though Bannon and Kushner are often presented as rivals, the source said, they shared the belief that Trump should tell the truth about Syria, revealing the Obama administration’s CIA analysis that a fatal sarin gas attack in 2013 was a “false-flag” operation intended to sucker President Obama into fully joining the Syrian war on the side of the rebels — and the intelligence analysts’ similar beliefs about Tuesday’s incident.”

Instead, Trump went along with the idea of embracing the initial rush to judgment blaming Assad for the Idlib poison-gas event. The source added that Trump saw Thursday night’s missile assault as a way to change the conversation in Washington, where his administration has been under fierce attack from Democrats claiming that his election resulted from a Russian covert operation.”

Later Parry writes

“logic and respect for facts no longer prevail inside Official Washington, nor inside the mainstream U.S. news media.”

In the space of 24 hours Trump has completely repudiated everything he ever said about Syria and foreign policy in general. The intelligence reports must be pretty damning, they must have concocted a case? Apparently not according to Philip Giraldi, extremely credible former CIA officer who stated:

“The intelligence confirms pretty much the account that the Russians have been giving … which is that they hit a warehouse where the rebels – now these are rebels that are, of course, connected with Al Qaeda – where the rebels were storing chemicals of their own and it basically caused an explosion that resulted in the casualties. Apparently the intelligence on this is very clear.”

In order to see just how these actions represent a complete repudiation of everything Trump claimed to represent, we need simply to measure the actions against the President’s own words upon inauguration.

“Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.”

This is a very powerful statement and the way I interpret it is he is saying that when he makes a decision the impact of said decision on the average American will be at the core of the process. It is the promise to govern in the interests of the people,”a nation exists to serve its citizens.”

This is a great litmus test by which to evaluate Trump as President.

Later in the speech the same themes are expressed even more forcefully and the folly of the US foreign policy over recent decades is also discussed.

“For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

Dud Tomahawk Cruise Missile at the Shayrat airbase in Homs after the US attack.The hole made by a cruise missile impact upon the arched hangar where the Syrian Air-force stored the planes they were repairing.Syrian soldiers outside the Shayrat airbase the day after the US attack.Graphic shows the purported targets attacked by the US. (Source)

An Open and Shut Breach of International Law.

The attack was not in conformity with international law and can therefore be deemed a war crime in and of itself, an act of criminal aggression taken on an evidence free pretext and without the required UN mandate. It is beyond unlikely that anyone will ever be prosecuted for making this illegal order but that is due to the impotence of the administration of international law, the illegality is uncontroversial.

“All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (Source)

Even if they eventually hold an investigation and it supports the assertions the US President has made about the origin of the Khan Shaykhun attack, the response was still illegal because there was no UN mandate and no imminent threat- the only situation that provides a legal exception.

” a general prohibition (on the use of force against another nation), subject only to the exceptions stated in the Charter (self-defence and Chapter VII action by the Security Council).

In his crude way, Trump has shown Obama the “correct” way to capitalise on a big lie.

Act before there is time for the real evidence to emerge. Act like a moron and pretend everyone knows what has happened without evidence, or recourse to basic commonsense.

Create facts on the ground with your response, that is, start the war and after that you’re off and away, the situation will now escalate naturally due to the action that you have taken enabling you to ride the big lie all the way to your desired outcome.

The desired outcome here would appear to be the complete destruction of the Syrian government and the dismemberment of the nation, with Israel gifted the Golan,al Qaeda, the Kurds and the Alawi/Shia./Druze/Christians all hosting mini-states in the place of Syria and never-ending bloodshed in its place.

Russian MoD drone footage of aftermath from US missile strike on Syrian Army airbase

RAW: US fires Tomahawk missiles at Syrian military base from USS Ross and USS Porter ships